CHAPTER NINE.

 THE CULKIN LINE.  ( Branches: Culkin, Dugan)      

top nine            margaret

 Culkin Family

1. JOHN¹ CULKIN  lived in Ireland at Kilglass in county Sligo.  Kilglass (Greychurch) today is described by cousin Tom Dorsey,who visited there in 1995, as  "a lonely hamlet with few residents. Up on a hill, several miles from the sea, it sits with the wind from the Atlantic blowing across some abandoned cottages, the gates of an old manor house and a few dairy and sheep herds. There is no sign in the road to tell you it is there."  (Kilglass Bay and Ballina are found on the border between counties Sligo and Mayo.)   He was born in 1801 and around 1830  married BARBARA CONWAY, who was about his age. Five of their children were baptised in Balinas townland, parish of Kilglass, where the records were found by Tom Dorsey.  He was a mason, a bricklayer, by trade.  When the famine was at its worst John took his family to America, on the bark Jessie , we think  it was the trip that arrived at Quebec 25 May 1847 after 28 days in passage and four in quarantine.  (This voyage has been selected because  John used to refer to his transport ship as the Jessie O'Sligo and this is the only registered trip of the Jessie from the port of Sligo that year.   See "British Parliamentary Papers 1847-48 XLVII pp397-493. Papers relating to Emigration.)  There were 243 passengers on board, all in steerage; 6 died in passage and 4 in quarantine; perhaps one of these deaths was his baby daughter Mary.

   The next we know of them is that John was naturalized in Oswego, New York, 13 October 1852 (Oswego County Clerk's office, Doc. CUL001). John and Barbara appear in the 1855 census: of the City of Oswego, Oswego Count, New York, with daughter , Catherine born in the United States 1849-50  and 4 other children. He died in Oswego 1 September 1858, and she died 2 September 1869 (dates on tombstones, St. Paul's cemetery).

       Children of John and Barbara: born in Ireland except for Catherine and baptized in Balinas townland, parish of Kilglass;  records found in Ireland by  Tom Dorsey:       

    2.        i. ANTHONY² CULKIN, bap. 9 Jan. 1832. ( Have copy of baptismal record)

              ii. BRIDGET CULKIN, b.ca. 1837; m. SAMUEL LEIGHTON a boat builder , of Bath, Maine.  They had children, among them Jessie who married Frank Fitzgerald of Oswego. Their daughter Marian Fitzgerald married John Brennan, and they in turn had a daughter Marion  Brennan who married Gordon Stuvland.

              iii. MICHAEL CULKIN, bap.  21 Aug. 1840; died Oswego,NY, 3 February 1874.  He was a mason like his father and brother.  

              iv. JOHN CULKIN, bap. 9 Aug. 1843. NFI. (may have returned to Ireland)

              v.  MARY CULKIN, bap. April 1846.  She did not appear in the Oswego 1855 Census, so she must have died before then..

             vi.  CATHERINE CULKIN, b. 1850, United States. ("Another daughter who married and lived below Oneida on Seneca Street; daughters were in Cleveland says Father Glynn in a letter to Marian Stuvland)

2. ANTHONY²  (John¹) CULKIN was baptized  in Balinas, Kilglass parish, County Sligo, Ireland, 9 January 1832,  (he was born 6 January) son of John Kilkin and Barbara Conway, emigrated to America with his parents and siblings in 1847.   He died  in Oswego, New York,4 August 1921, and is buried in St. Paul's cemetery.  He married  at St. Mary's Church, Oswego, 1 July, 1858 BRIDGET  DUGAN, daughter of Michael Dugan  and Mary McGrath.  He learned the trade of mason from his father, and became a successful contractor, building everything from sidewalks to St. Paul's Church  and the City Hall..  In the 1862 New York Census he is listed in Oswego as Anthony Calkins, 28,  mason, with wife Bridget, 23, and daughter Mary,1.  His grandson Hosmer writes that he was "a very impressive figure, who I remember as bearing some resemblance  to Bernard Shaw."  He was an alderman of Oswego and a democrat..

Hosmer says that he would reread once a year The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire., so he could not have been as "priest ridden" as MCB described. I remember him as the  legendary teller of the riddle, "Why is the heating apparatus in our cellar like a Spanish Donkey ?  Because it's a furrrrrn' ass."  And the quip that was attributed to him about Dido et Dux,  "Dido was very fond of ducks" and his favorite dessert "Min's Pie."

This picture is an enlargement from the family photograph  below taken in 1880 showing Anthony and Bridget  surrounded by their children:

               Children of Anthony and Bridget: all born Oswego.(Baptismal dates from St. Paul's Church, Oswego) ; death dates from Hosmer Culkin, from tombstones at St. Paul's Cemetery.                   .

                    i.  MARY CULKIN, b. 1859; d. 1940  ; m. THOMAS NAVAGH who died 1903 ; they had no children. She stands in the middle of the back row. Despite having been born with a facial disfigurement (harelip), Min was very popular with everyone.  And vain of her appearance... it is not too aparent in the photograph, but close inspection shows where Min, displeased with the way she looked,  cut a hole in the picture, inserted a likeness she preferred, and had the whole thing rephotographed.   After the death of Thomas, she returned home to run the household and resume her job as teacher in the elementary schools. She was called "Min the Magnificent" by Father Robert Glynn in a letter to his cousin Marian Stuvland.

         3        ii. WILLIAM EDGAR CULKIN, bap.15 Oct. 1860. Standing on the right.

                   iii. JOHN AUGUSTINE CULKIN, bap. 29 May 1862;  m. ANNA PEARSON; d. 1956. " Jack" is standing on the left; he was a newspaper reporter.   It is reported that this was a rocky marriage, that they went to Nebraska where he started farming and the life  there was so rough  that Anna's family went after them and "brought her home" (Letter from Father Glynn). They were later reconciled and were buried in the family plot; they had no children.

                   iv. MICHAEL CULKIN, b.1864; d. 1925.  Sitting on the left. He was a black sheep, drank to excess, and the family lost touch with him.  MCB said that her clipping company sent her a newspaper report saying that Michael "had died in a rooming house in a southwestern city, and on his bed was a copy of the Saturday Evening Post which he had been reading...my name as a contibutor was in large letters on the cover.  He had certainly told someone that I was one of his family, for a newspaperman made a human interest story out of the homeless derelict dying as he read the story his niece had written."  This story, I think, is true, although I can't remember seeing the clipping.  He was buried in Oswego.

               v. JOSEPH RICHARD CULKIN, bap.7 May 1866; d. 9 June, 1922; m. MARGARET----, a Canadian.  He is sitting on the right, below Will.  He graduated from Bellview Medical College , New York City (financially assisted in part by Will according to MCB) and practiced at St. Mary's Hospital, Rochester, NY. During WW1 he served with the army at Ft. Upton , Long Island. This camp had fewer influenza deaths than any other in the country , and for this he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal , which MCB pinned on him. This medal is awarded to a person  who "has distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious serive to the Government in a duty of great responsibility...for service which is clearly exceptional." He died suddenly of angina.

 At 16 years, when his brother Bill had gone to Minnesota, he wrote him a classic letter describing life at home, which I quote at length:

"The Baby is squaling like a young catamount. The Baby and Lar have the "chicken pock." The Baby is just getting over it Lar has just caught it. Min has a very bad cold, she can not talk as much as usual but she is under the very best of medical treatment. France has just passed into third reader and he  (is) quite a lad. All the rest are in good health and spirits as far as I can ascertain.  Aunt Kate and Uncle Chad are in very fair health, Aunt Mary is in great "Rotation."  Your friend from hear (self) has gone to work in Dr. Kingston's Drug store. Frank Yager is going to New York to look for higher wages. They receive letters (from) Patsy now and then, he is in good health and is doing very well.      The business outlook is not so very bright in Oswego as it might be; but it may brighten up after a while.  I am kept very busy at the store and I hope to be a first class druggist in two yrs. if nothing happens.  All hands are joking me about poisonning every (body). You had ought to see me look "Wise and Owl like" when asked about any kind of medicine. I do it so natural. Pappa has about all the small jobs that he can tend to, but they do not amount to  much.  We are to have a new car works here that will employ about 125 men on the start. Navigation has opened up, and there is a little doing.  Rents have gone up a great deal; houses are renting for 1/8 more than they were last year, but still there dont seem as though there was going to be any large buildings put up here.    

    I suppose you have heard about "the Comet"; well, they claim that it will strike the earth somewhere in the US, the head striking in Minn. and the tail extending westwards. You can draw your own conclusions, but take my advice and vacate the dangerous spot.   Say, Bill, is there much of a chance for a smart active young man "Out West?"  I think that when I get a little more drugs in me that I will shoulder my Pestle,  stick a Spatula in my belt. and "filter" toward the great west. I wont stay in Oswego more than two years at the most." 

                  vi. BARBARA CULKIN, bap. Oct 1860; d. 1943.   She is standing next to Will on the right. She never married, but became interested in the teaching of retarded children, very rare for that time, and started a special school for them in Oswego, one of the first in the country..

                 vii  ANNA CULKIN, bap.18 Jan. 1869; d. 1873.  

                viii. (JAMES) ANTHONY CULKIN,  1873-1942; m. ALICE GRIFFIN.  Sitting on the floor. He was called Amp.  He carried on his father's business, constructing buildings, and also building brick roads..   They had six children..

             ix. FRANCIS DUGAN CULKIN, b. 10 Nov. 1874, d. 4 Aug. 1942, m. LOUISE HOSMER who had graduated from Vassar and was the one who was most important in getting MCB to go there.  He and his brother Amp are sitting on the floor. Children Hosmer and Josephine. "France," as the family called him was admitted to the bar in 1902.  He became a Republican, probably, according to Hosmer, because no public office was granted to Democrats.   He was District Attorney of Oswego County from 1911 to 1921, and a county judge for the next seven years.  Then he was a Representative , Republican, in the US Congress until his death. He served as a private in the Spanish-American war. He and his wife were very nice to me when I was going to school near Washington; he even got me a ticket to hear Roosevelt's  first inaugural addresss. One story MCB told that she had heard in Oswego, and it sounds real enough,  "about the day when my grandfather heard a great shouting in the bedroom that several of the boys shared.  He went stamping upstarirs to see what was going on.  France.who was then about ten, was jumping up and down on the bed , brandishing an old gun and shouting, 'with the help of God, we'll kill the Queen!' "  Culkin Hall at Suny College in Oswego is named for him.

                 x. LAWRENCE CULKIN, b. 16 Aug., 1876; died Dec.18, 1896, of tuberculosis.    He was the pet of the whole family.             

                xi.  MORRIS CULKIN,  b. 1881; died 1899.  The baby. Also died of tuberculosis.  He was a newspaper reporter. As he got sicker everyone, including himself, knew he was dying but no one would admit it. He would sit out on the porch, and one day, the postman said to him,  "Good morning Morris, how're you feeling today?" and he replied '' Oh I feel fine, but France  is sick and he had to be in court, so I'm taking his place"             

. 3. WILLIAM  EDGAR³ (Anthony², John¹) CULKIN was born in Oswego, New York  in 1861,  and died in Duluth, Minnesota 25 June 1949.  He was a redhead. He married HANNAH ALICE YOUNG, daughter of John Young and Margaret Plunkett in Waverly, Minnesota , 8 July 1886, the ceremony performed by Rev. Father Guuillot .He started "reading law" in Oswego, then got dissatisfied with the life there and left for the West from New York, via New Orleans, in the summer of 1880, bringing consternation to the family. To our great good luck, he kept many of his letters from home.  Min, as the spokeman for the family, wrote him severely on August 10, 1880:

                   "To say that we were surprised at receiving that postal from you but feebly expresses it.  We did not know what to do or say, but as long as you had sailed from N.Y. there was no remedy and so we had to be resigned.   We expected you home that Saturday night and we were much disappointed when you did not come.  

                   Papa and Moma feel terrible at the way you have done.  He says he did not desereve any such treatment from you as that.  If you had even sent word as to what you were doing or your object in going, or any of the particulars, we would have been satisfied, but that postal you sent was no use, only served as aggravation.  Why didn't you send the particulars, and what could have induced you to go there at this season of the year, the worst time for going south?  We cannot account for it in any way. I do believe that if the news came that you were dead we could not have felt much worse.  Papa wants you to telegraph the minute you get this letter... if you ever do....do not stop to wait and write but telegraph uis immediately and let us know what you are doing. You must have had some object in going there and we want to know what it was.

                    Papa does not want you to stay any length of time in N. O.  If you land, then keep on the steamer as much as possible for fear of the fever and other diseases which you might get. It seems to me that since your going away your conduct has been very strange. You must have forgotten that you ever had a home or friends.  You did not even take the time to write home.  We can scarcely believe that it is you who have acted so. Mama said you must have forgotten you ever had a mother at all,.you seemed to have forgotten all about her. But she says she don't know what to say to you and only hopes the Lord will take care of you.  Be sure and write a long letter when you get there, after you telegraph, and explain every thing.   Jack felt terrible when he heard about it.  I actually thought he might fainrt, he turned as white as a corpse..   You must be very carerful of your health and not expose yourself.  John Mc is here and having a good time. He has written to N.Y. to find out the particulars that you didn't send.     The children are all well. Lawrence says Bill has gone down in the river.

.. A letter written to him by his brother John that same month says,

"Papa wants me to say that he hopes nothing he has or not said had any influence on your leaving home. He thinks you may have left home on account of his grumbling once and a while and I tried to covnince him  that not. But a few words in a letter to him from you would be the best way to fix that all up.....Papa says for you  to come home rite away which I hope you will."

In another letter of 24 July, 1811, John says that his father has asked him to say that if he was going to practice law, it had better be elsewhere than in Oswego, which already had too many young lawyers, adding that his father had always advised them well.   On April 14, 1882, his brother Joe writes:

  "Yours of the 11th is at hand and brings something for which we were all hoping, that you would be admitted to the bar...I tell you what, it put a feather in the hat of the Culkin family! Mamma and Pappa were very glad to hear of it. Grandma, Aunt Kate Macnamnara, Mrs. Madigan,  had a grand crying spell over it . The rest of us were affected according to our different temperments. " 

From New Orleans he took a river a river steamer up the Mississippi as far as it went, getting off at what is now St. Paul, Minnesota.  While still reading law, he taught school for his food and board. To his credit he kept one letter from this time. along with those from home: it was a note he had sent home with a boy he had punished, with the father's reply on the inside:

Feb.23, 1881  Mr. Kennedy  Dear Sir.  I called your boy Edward to the floor this afternoon for some trifling misconduct and took him by the ear to punish him.  I was astonished to see and you will be to hear that he made an effort to strike me. I punished him severely for it and drew some blood from his nose of course by accident.  I send you this as I thought you would like to hear of it. Yrs. truly, Wm. E. Culkin  

          The note was returned with this inside:

Dear Sir: I received the note which surprised me very much. I am fully satisfied with the boy's explanation of the attempt to strike you. You took him by the ear to punish him. He raised his hand about to put it to his ear. You took hold of the hand when he was in the act of getting it in a position to strike, as you thought.  And of course you  thought it time to assert your dignity, and you did in good shape.    Now sir, to be plain with you. I think you let your temper run off with your good sense.  After (banging?) his ears and throughing him on the floor, you took him out and left him to stop the blood.  Then to make your case good you ask him if he'll take a whipping, well he did and you must be fully satisfied when you get done, you did it well.  His ear was sore, he has a Black  Eye when I saw him this evening.        Now my good sir, when you have occasion to punish him again, and I acknowledge your right to do it,  But as a father I forbid you to pull or box his ears, perhaps you didn't know you might hurt a child for life by that mode of punishment.  Use your Rooler. A man can keep order in a school room without being a Broot.   J. Kennedy 

He was admitted to the bar in 1882 and a few years later proposed to  "the prettiest girl in Wright County."   This letter, dated 12 April; 1886, was kept, and later quoted by MCB:

Dear Sir:

     I ask your permission to take as my wife from your home your daughter Hannah. Indeed I feel that I am asking more than I desrve but I have to offer in return an unswerving affection and a determination to make her life happy.   It is true that I am unworthy; but I shall never cease trying to make a change for the better.

     Yet I do not feel that I am unwelcome in her eyes.  She has, in fact, permitted her to write this letter. It is not necessary to speak of myself further.  You have known me for several years and your opinion of me, whether favorable or not, at this time is certainly formed.

          I hope it is not unfavorable.  With much respect, and earnestly hoping for your consent to what I have asked, provided that the object of my affections and trust is willing, I remain, Sir,   Most sincerely

         William E. Culkin

After admission to the bar, he was elected County Attorney of  Wright County for three terms; served one term as State Senator for Minnesota's 38th district from 1895-97 entitling him to the term Honorable for the rest of his life.. In 1892, he carried the Republican electoral vote to Washington. He was a charter member of the first I.O.O. F (International Order of Odd Fellows) lodge in Wright County.

In 1897 he was appointed by President McKinley to the post of Register of the Duluth Land Office. Then when the Republicans went out of office he took up general law practice in partnershp with his brother-in-law John Samuelson, specializing in court room trials and labor law, representing labor.  The story is told that he once asked a hostile witness..."Just one more question, Mr. Savage, is your name inherited or acquired?"   He continued until his hearing was so bad he could no longer follow the procedures, and in 1915 he retired from law practice  to write editorials for the Duluth Herald.  He was a life long Republican, except for voting for Theodore Roosevelt for whom he had great admiration.  He was founder and first president of the St. Louis County Historical Society.

A lake was named after him by the Minnesota Legislature, supposedly the source of the St. Louis River, and thus the whole St. Laurence waterway; it turned out the source was elsewhere, but the thought was there.  In 1988 a million dollar Memorial Rest Area off Interstate I-35 was dedicated to him, on some land given by his children, Margaret and William; Governor Rehnquist attended and gave a speech.

                Children of William and Hannah, all except Dorothy born in Buffalo, Minnesota.

i. MARY LOUISE CULKIN, b. Buffalo, MN April 1888; d. Duluth, MN 4 Feb. 1968. She received a B.S. and an M.A.degree at Columbia Univerisity , studying under John Dewey, and taught in many places in the east and midwest, with her final position assistant professor of English at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.  The University of Minnesota adotpted a resolution at her death that ended " Miss Culkin was a fluent speaker, a teacher with the highest professional gifts, a woman of wit, taste, and refinement.  The high standards of personal and professional behavior to which she held herself, she admired and insisted upon in others."  She would come to spend the nights with us when mother was out of town, and made Tanner and me really behave; we did not look forward to those visits, although we liked Aunt Mabel and she told good stories. She tried very hard to teach us "gracious living," but it didn't rub off on either of us very well.  A letter from her, at age 8, to her grandfather Young has survived, from which I quote:  "I know 8 girls and they areall nice except one. And my tricycle is broke so bad that the front wheel is of and that girl broke it.."

    She is the only one I remember of my family as having strong prejudices.  If a then-called negro would sit next to her in a movie, she would move.  Nor Jews: once, after she bought a dress at a Jewish womens' shop, she was very indignant when she was sent a second bill, after neglecting to pay the first one, and threw it in the wastebasket, saying "what nerve.!"  (Mother retrieved it.  It was paideventually.)

   But she did bring us wonderful presents..choclate mice with string tails from Chicago; books that were fun to read as well as those we should read. AND, best of all, she could tell stories...Epaminondas was the best, as I was to find with my own children.

        4.    ii. MARGARET FRANCES CULKIN, b. 18 March, 1891. 

iii. WILLIAM ANTHONY CULKIN, born September 1896, died 1989 in Vancouver, Washington.  He married     MARIAN ----.; they adopted one child, Peter, who became a racecar driver and also married one.   When the United States entered World War 1,  and he was a student at Cornell University, he left to join the Air Force, finishing after the war was over.  Dissatisfied with being "a glorified office boy" in a  new Air Line company with his fellow pilot Ernie Rickenbacker, he went West to seek his fortune in the lumber business. There he succeeded very well.  After the death of his wife, he became a Christian Scientist, because of her splendid example in her last illness.

He was always full of fun, would roar with laughter at his own jokes as well as those of others  He was my first hero. 

When Aunt Mabel died, my mother was in Europe, and rather than call her back, Bill and I took care of things, postphoning the cable to her until it was too late for her to attend the funeral.  My friends told me later that, since neither of us were church goers, we would always hesitate to stand or kneel when we should, looking for some sort of signal, and that from the back the rest of the congregation would follow us in waves of undecision.

When my 16 year old son, Tom, whom he had never met, arrived unannounced at his doorstep, saying "Hi, Uncle Bill, I'm Tom Friedlander, and I'm hitching my way back to Wisconsin", Bill took him in, had him take a bath, washed and dried his clothes, fed him, and drove him 100 miles on his way, all the time acting as if it were the  most normal meeting in the world.

Bill was the calm one in the middle of the high-strung family.

            iv. DOROTHY BARBARA CULKIN, (Dodo) b. in Duluth, MN March, 1897 and died suddenly Dec. 1935 in New York City, of pneumonia .  She was very pretty, what was called a "flapper," and was very spoiled by her parents and siblings.  For a while she studied singing, giving several concerts; then she was a reporter for a Chicago newspaper.  She was openly irreverent, mocking the habits of the more devout Catholics in the family, even demanding that the priest who came to give her absolution be taken away.. She never married, but always had many beaux.  She taught me how to make fudge, doughnuts, and french fried potatoes.

    At Christmas time the family always had dinner at Hunter's Park before going to the orphanage to hang little red stockings we had made and stuffed on the bedposts of the sleeping children; then the adults would go on to Midnight Mass.  After dinner we would gather around the tree (which was always pretty dry by then) and light the candles. In those days there were no strings of tiny electric lights, but rather real candles with little tin holders that we could snap onto the branches.  A pail of water was kept handy near by, but we never had a tree fire, as they were called. ( There were several real chimnay fires there that I remember.  They would start with a noise like an approaching train, the children would be husatled outdoors, sand and water poured on the fire and the fire department called. Fortunately the fire was always contained in the chimney itself).  It was Dorothy who liked the Death game; each person would pick a candle and the one whose candle went out first would be the first to die.  She thought, I suppose, that she was immortal.

4. MARGARET FRANCES⁴ (William³, Anthony²,  John¹) CULKIN, was born in Buffalo, Minnesota  18 March 1891 and died in Tryon, North Carolina   4 January 1982 .  She married in Duluth , Minnesota, 9 October 1914 ARCHIBALD TANNER BANNING, JR.; they were divorced in 1929.   They had four children, Mary Margaret, (Archibald) Tanner, William, and Margaret; the two youngest died in infancy.  She married for a second time, in New York City, 1942, LEROY SALSICH, of Duluth.   I was too close to her to write any account, but here are the facts from an autobiography she wrote for herself: 

     " I went to the public schools in Duluth. I was a homely, freckled child and my older sister was extremely pretty so it may have been an unconcious rivalry which made me do well in school...when I graduated from high school I had been so smart that I was rather frail and, fearing tuberculosis, my parents sent me to live in Rochester, New York for a year with my father's brother and his wife. My uncle, Dr. Joseph Culkin, was a very well-known doctor and he and his beloved wife were devout Catholics.  They placed me in a the Convent of the Sacred Heart as a day student and I had one of the happiest years of my life.....It was because of the insistence of one of my other uncles that I was sent to Vassar to continue my education....Of course I kept on writing poetry...I was also deeply interested in economics and sociology.  The double interest, in creative writing and in the solution of human problems, has influenced my life from that time until the present.

    ...It was inevitable that I should go into social work after I graduated. I was given a Russell Sage fellowship in Chicago and studied there for a year, living at the University Settlement House.  Then I went back to Duluth and for a year worked there to estasblish social centers in that city. In the first year of the First World War I married and went to England where my husband, who was a lawyer, had a task which concerned abrogated grain contracts.  This took him to Belgium and Holland.  I stayed in London, kept a diary, worked with the Red Cross part time, and began my first novel...fortunately never published.  I cam back to the United States to become a mother and a housewife. When I was expecting my third child I began to think I must get back to writing...or I never would....I began to tutor with Viola Roseboro, the best critic I have ever known.  At the end of the summer I had finished a novel. It was bought and published by George H. Doran.

...before long my financial and domestic circumstances changed.....I was given tremendous opportunities but the pressure to produce more and better work was constant snf exhausting.  For years I wrote at least one serial  story every year and it meant working many hours every day and oftern during most of the night. I should probably state at this point, although I think that no writer can make rules that fit others, that it was quite possible for me to do a great deal of writing and also keep close to my children until they went away to school. As time has gone on...we have been fortunate to have a house in North Carolina and two lodges on the Brule River where we all spend considerable time.

   As I wrote recently...a writer is lucky in the fact that he can continue his work as long as he lives and has his reason.  There is no age of retirement for a writer.  As one grows older, one may write less but more thoughtully than ever before. That is what I myself try to do.

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Dugan Family

1. MICHAEL¹ DUGAN  was born in  County Limerick, Ireland about 1805 and died in Oswego, New York  We have a record from Ireland  (Limerick Regional Archives) showing that  in  April 1828  in their Roman Catholic Parish of Knocklong and Glenbrohane , county Limerick, Michael Duggan married MARY MCGRATH ,  who might have been the daughter of Patrick, since both a Patrick Sr. and Jr McGrath. were listed there.Knocklong lies 18 miles southeast of Limerick City. The Archives also show that he owned over 11 acres of good pasture, tillage and meadow in the townland of Ballyfroots in the Tithe Appointment Book for the civil parish of Ballingarry. Two  Patrick McGraths also owned land  there. Baptisms were as shown below.  There is no Irish record for Michael Duggan  in 1852.

 They emigrated to America  and appear in the 1855 New York State Census: Michael  Dugan 60, laborer,  and wife Mary 40, with children Catherine 26, Patrick 21, laborer, John 16, Bridget 19,  and Mary 9.  Living with them were William Banes, 25, laborer and John McGrath, 30, carpenter, all born in Ireland..

      Children of Michael and Mary, all baptised in Knocklong, Ireland, except Patrick.

                        i.  CATHERINE²  DUGGAN, bap. 17 Feb. 1829.

                        ii. PATRICK DUGGAN, b. ca.1831. (There is a gap in the records from July 1830 to Dec. 1831).

                       iii.   JOHN DUGGAN, bap. 16  June 1834. father of  James.

            2         iv.  BRIDGET DUGGAN, bap. 14 Feb. 1837.; d. 15 Jan 1897.

                        v. MICHAEL DUGGAN, bap. 17 Dec. 1839.  NFI

                       vi. ELLEN DUGGAN, bap. 20 Dec. 1840.   NFI

                      vii. MARY DUGGAN, bap. 7 Jan 1844.

                     viii. BETTY DUGGAN, bap.27 Feb. 1847. NFI

2. BRIDGET (Michael) DUGAN was baptized 14 February 1837 in Knocklong, County Limerick, Ireland  (the family name was spelled with two gs  in Knocklong, one g in Oswego, and pronounced "Doogan" ) and died in Oswego, New York 15 Jan 1897. She married Anthony Culkin 1 July 1858 and had the children listed under Anthony.  I include her  enlarged picture because it is the only one I have of her. Family legend has it that "after the birth of her last child she called the family together and announced that she had worked hard all her life and she was finished. They were on their own" and she never worked thereafter, leaving things to Min and Barbara  Culkin and her sister Mary. The legend suits the picture.

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